Painful Diabetic Neuropathy - Online survey

Dear all,

My name is Kitty Kioskli, and I am a PhD candidate at King’s College London (IoPPN) under the supervision of Professor Lance McCracken and Dr Kirsty Winkley. My PhD focuses on diabetes patients suffering from Painful Diabetic Neuropathy (PDN) and is funded by Diabetes UK. Currently, I am conducting a survey targeting to gather a more in-depth understanding of the experience of pain from the perspective of PDN patients.

Potential participants who would like to take part, will have to log into the surveys’ link:

and answer ten questionnaires, which overall will help the research team to collect demographic data, and assess pain intensity, certain attitudes toward pain, mood, and the impact of pain on participants’ daily physical, social and work activities.

The recruitment window is: from 6/2/2018 until 7/5/2018 and our research team targets to recruit 200 participants.

The inclusion criteria for the study are:

1. Confirmed diagnosis of diabetes.
2. Presence of painful diabetic neuropathy, for the last three months or more.
3. Aged at least 18 years.
4. Willingness and ability to take part.

Really? REALLY? I took the **** survey. In the end you want to know how much we would pay for someone to tell us it's just in our minds? PDN is REAL pain, and you can't just "trick" the mind into pretending it's not there! It's caused by nerves being in real distress, and sending signals saying so. The whole idea of this survey, let alone the reality of it, is SO insulting.

There's a HUGE difference between psychological therapy to help COPE with the pain, and to learn to accept it, and to try to live the best you can despite it, versus pretending that any psychological therapy can actually eliminate the pain.

I'm blessed that, to date, my PDN is mild and manageable. But I wouldn't even think to presume that anyone, especially those with much more severe cases, could "treat" it by psychological therapy.

There's a reason there's " little development or research into psychological treatments for neuropathic pain in general, including PDN." It's the same reason there's little development or research into psychological treatments for broken arms. Because it's REAL pain from REAL injuries. You can "Accept and Commit" to your heart's content, but as long as the underlying injury exists, there's going to be pain.

Dear Peter, our research team does not aim to treat PDN neither claims that is not a real condition or the pain is not real. The last questions regarding the payment aim to gather more data for the most acceptable intervention regarding every domain (length, duration, financially, recruitment, attendance rates) for individuals who suffer from PDN. We do or will not have any financial benefit from the present or other surveys.